English: American entrepreneur, author and public speaker Seth Godin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who is Seth Godin?

Seth Godin is one of the entrepreneurs, authors, and speakers who helped the Internet become what it is today. He coined the phrase “Permission Marketing” with his now-classic book of the same title in 1999 as well as 16 other bestselling books on marketing and the Web 2.0 era. He has also become a hero of mine over the years.

The year was 2003…

I was the volunteer coordinator for the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Special Interest group for Fast Company magazine‘s Company of Friends readership network. Don’t look for it. It doesn’t exist anymore. This is also before I was formally introduced to the complete awesomeness of Seth Godin. Being a loyal Fast Company reader, I knew Seth was writing articles for Fast Company. Here’s what happened in a nutshell, when I asked Seth Godin to speak for one of our teleconferences I used to do. I sent an email, after all, everyone reads their email (right?). I didn’t get a response after a couple of days, so I sent another email. After all, I’m sure Seth is a busy man. Then one day I got the reply. I thought it would read how interested and excited he would be to speak for our prospective teleconference for our fledgling group associated with the magazine that he wrote articles for. I opened it, and to my horror I saw the reply: “What’s in it for me?”

“What’s In It For Me?”

When I first read Mr. Godin’s short reply to my carefully crafted invitation, I was insulted. I thought he was asking me for a fee. The magazine didn’t pay fees, my marketing budget for the group was zero, and my title began with the word “volunteer” (which meant I didn’t get paid either). I felt that I had nothing of value to offer Mr. Godin.

If you’ve ever been in professional sales, chances are that you’ve heard this phrase before. All of the big sales trainers like the late Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer have all used this phrase in their seminars. Why? Because it is a fundamental truth in persuading someone to buy what you are selling. In order to be successful in selling products, services, or even ideas, you have to explain what is in it for your prospect, audience, readers, etc. It is also something that I was not trained on until I learned some really bad habits early in my sales career.

The REAL Lesson

What I didn’t understand is that he was trying to teach me a lesson, to teach me about appealing to one’s primary motivations for doing anything. Fast forward about ten years and I’m still learning about marketing, about connecting with prospects and building a business that creates value for my customers and clients and for my bank account. I read about the Unique Selling Proposition (USP), about appealing to buying motivations, and then it hit me: Seth Godin was trying to help me! He wanted to help me connect with my prospects and customers better by being able to answer this question “What’s in it for me?”

The lesson is that if you are in the business of convincing someone to take an action, to enjoy a product or service, to click a link, or to do anything, you must know what ‘s in it for them. It doesn’t matter what you think is in it for them. It matters what they think is in it for them.